1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system, and, in particular, to a method and apparatus for reviewing electronic documents. Still more particularly, the present invention is related to a computer implemented method, an apparatus, and a computer usable program product for reviewing an electronic document for spelling errors.
2. Description of the Related Art
The generation of an electronic document is often a collaborative effort undertaken by a number of different users, such as authors and reviewers. During the course of generating the document, one or more users may add content to the document and/or review the document for spelling errors. The users often rely upon a document editing program referencing a dictionary of commonly used words to assist in the identification of incorrectly spelled words. This dictionary, also called a “standard dictionary,” is often a database included in or working in conjunction with a word processing application, such as Microsoft™ Word®.
A document editing program is a program that is often integrated with a word processing application and enables a user to review and modify electronic documents. A document editing program is, for example, the program integrated with Microsoft™ Word® and Corel™ WordPerfect® that enables a user to edit an electronic document and to check the spelling and grammar of an electronic document, among other things. By referencing a standard dictionary, the document editing program can identify an incorrectly spelled word or a non-standard word. A non-standard word is a correctly spelled word, an acronym, or an alphanumeric string of text that is not located in a standard dictionary. Consequently, the spelling of the non-standard word cannot be verified by a document editing program referencing the standard dictionary. The spelling of each such non-standard word is individually verified by a user in this situation. In many document editing programs, upon verifying the spelling of a non-standard word, the user may choose to instruct the document editing program to “ignore” or skip over the non-standard word or to add the non-standard word to the user's personal dictionary. If the non-standard word is added to the user's personal dictionary, the non-standard word will be deemed correctly spelled by the document editing program in subsequent reviews of the document by that particular user.
A personal dictionary, like the standard dictionary, is often a database of words. However, the personal dictionary, which usually includes non-standard words, is stored on a particular user's computer or virtual workspace and is maintained separately from the standard dictionary.
The spelling of the non-standard words already verified by a first user is often re-verified by another user operating a different computer or logged onto a different account because the other user lacks access to the personal dictionary of the first user. This duplication of work is inefficient and decreases productivity, especially as the number of authors and document reviews increases.
One currently implemented solution to this problem employs the use of other dictionaries, such as a site dictionary, in addition to the standard dictionary and the personal dictionary. A site dictionary, which also contains non-standard words, is an electronic dictionary that is accessible to users of a local area network (LAN) and is modifiable by a designated administrator. This solution, however, is cumbersome because of the various dictionaries a user is required to maintain and utilize. Additionally, the multiple dictionaries have the potential to consume an excessive amount of computer resources as the dictionaries continue to grow in size.
Another currently implemented solution to this problem involves the automatic submission of personal dictionary entries to a vendor of a standard dictionary. The vendor adds the personal dictionary entries to the standard dictionary and automatically updates the standard dictionaries of the vendor's customers. The updating process, however, may not be made quickly enough to eliminate the need for duplicating the review of non-standard words contained within the electronic document. Further, the standard dictionary has the potential to grow exponentially large and include so many non-standard words that even blatantly misspelled words are deemed correct. Additionally, such a standard dictionary could also consume valuable computer resources as the standard dictionary increases in size.
The currently used solutions presented above may fail to reduce the amount of duplicated work. In addition, the number and sizes of the dictionaries used may increase and result in undue burden in order to use and maintain the dictionaries.